According to Saltzman, during his 15-year tenure with the show, he modeled Bert and Ernie after his own romantic relationship with the late Arnold Glassman, even going so far as to incorporate their real-life quirks into his interpretation of the characters. Adorable!

The guy who actually wrote for the characters said they were gay, and I think he is a bit more important than the guy who came up with the concept. Their actions are what matter at the end of the day, and their actions were written to be "gay".

Also, if you read the initial press release... it's a train wreck. It talks about how none of the puppets have any sort of sexual orientation, which is obvious bullshit if you know about Kermit/Ms. Piggy or Oscar/Grundgetta (or the Counts fulfilling the Dracula stereotype and knowing many women).

They went back and removed any mention of sexual orientation in their next release, perhaps realising that they had just stuck their foot in their mouth... so frankly their opinion on what the characters are or aren't is somewhat irrelevant at this point.

Their actions showed that homophobia does still run in modern society, even amongst "progressive" programming like Sesame Street they have to toe certain lines to avoid pissing people off. If they hadn't started by making a simply factually wrong statement and then continued to contradict the characters' writer reason for writing them the way then did, that would be one thing. They just dropped the ball.

The guy who actually wrote for the characters said they were gay, and I think he is a bit more important than the guy who came up with the concept. Their actions are what matter at the end of the day, and their actions were written to be "gay".

So according to you, that means making captain america into a hidden Nazi is perfectly acceptable, despite his creator being Jewish?

Also Dumbledore was never written as gay in the movies, but later his creator said he actually was gay. Just because someone could go over the movies claiming there is no evidence of him being gay, that doesn't matter, the original writer of the character said he is gay.

The creator of the character has more weight in what said character is, especially when said creator is still alive to say it, then what a writer who writes about it or has their interpretation of the character.

The Bert & Ernie being gay situation illustrates how people different people approach LGBTQ issues. I see the ambiguity of their relationship as much queerer, and a lot more fun, than having them be overtly gay. Other people want representation. As a gay kid, I didn't look to puppets for affirmation, I looked to adults. I wanted to see that adults treated LGBTQ people as normal human beings.

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So according to you, that means making captain america into a hidden Nazi is perfectly acceptable, despite his creator being Jewish?

No, and I don't think I should have to explain to you the fundamental differences between a hateful ideology and a biological condition.

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Also Dumbledore was never written as gay in the movies, but later his creator said he actually was gay. Just because someone could go over the movies claiming there is no evidence of him being gay, that doesn't matter, the original writer of the character said he is gay.

Firstly, Harry Potter started as a series of books which J.K. Rowling had complete creative control over, which is different than a muppet created by one person and then having all it's actions and speech written by another.

Secondly, there is no evidence that Dumbledore is gay or straight so it is entirely in the hands of the creator to decide that one. His sexual orientation doesn't clash with the cannon in one way or another, so it is really irrelevant.

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The creator of the character has more weight in what said character is, especially when said creator is still alive to say it, then what a writer who writes about it or has their interpretation of the character.

Why?

If I created a character right now, and then delegated it's writing to you, why would my opinion be more important than yours (when you are putting me work into the character development anyways)?

Now imagine I am saying the character likes blueberries, even though you have consistently written about his aversion to blueberries and in every episode of the show he has shown a tendency to like blueberries. Would the fact I say he likes blueberries mean that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is true... just because I created him?

They were the odd couple. Everything about them was all mixed up, so if one was gay and the other was straight, that would pretty much fit with the story line, no matter what sexual orientation you attached to one or both of them.

Incidentally back in the late sixties, I shared an apartment with another guy. We were both straight. He was a jock like Oscar, but instead of being a slob like Oscar, he was excessively neat. He even ironed his underwear. He also took bubble baths, and there was always a big box of Mr. Bubble in the bathroom, although when kidded about it, he insisted it was to help fight bathtub ring. This may have been true, but I was never sure.

I was the slob, which came to a head one day as he was vacuuming the rug and I was just sitting there not lifting a finger to help. He was so neat, it just never got dirty enough for me to bother cleaning; We had serious arguments over house cleaning. The final touch after all his cleaning was to put a dish of nuts and candies on the coffee table. I would gobble them up in one sitting, which pissed him off because the dish was always empty, and it destroyed the ambiance he was trying to create.

I played basketball on the town team, but it was purely recreational on my part, while he was the quintessential jock and played college football and wrestled. He coached high school football after he graduated college, and was a state certified wrestling referee who was highly sought after in tournaments.

I was dating a woman, but I could never get to second base with her. When she met my roommate, she went gaga. I'm sure it was because he was built like an Adonis. Then they started to date, and she was always trying to get him to have sex with her, which he whined about because he was a Catholic and didn't believe in premarital sex.

My friends started calling us the odd couple. That was an interesting year.